The Daily Banner, Greencastle, Putnam County, 5 December 1968 — Page 8

Page 8

The Daily Banner, Greencastle, Indiana

Thursday, December 5, 1968

Pilot of stolen plane rescued after ditching in ocean

ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. (UPI)— A 22.year.old flying enthusiast stole a single engine plane from Lakewood, N.J., early today, lost his nerve trying to land at Kennedy Airport, and ditched the craft 4 v 2 hours later in the foggy waters of the Atlantic off Norfolk, Va. He was rescued by helicopter in good condition. Officials at the Coast Guard station here said the pilot, John D. Hemphill, 22, of Bricktown, N.J., was being held under armed guard for FBI agents following a checkup by base doctors. Hemphill was rescued from the chilly waters about 50 miles off Norfolk an hour and 10 minutes after his Piper Cherokee 172 ran out of fuel and he was forced to ditch. He clung to a liferaft dropped by a Coast Guard airplane before being lifted from the water by a helicopter. The seven-hour drama began shortly after 1 a.m. at the Lakewood, N.J. airport. According to police in that community, Hemphill, who they believed was a washed out flying student who took his last lesson at the airport eight months ago, broke into the airport manager’s

office and stole the keys to the Cherokee. He then took off and headed south before turning around and flying towards Kennedy airport. Kennedy officials said he contacted them by radio and said he wanted them to guide him to a landing. “He sounded kind of rattled,” said Coast Guard Capt. Vance Randle who overhead the conversation as he joined in the attempt to get Hemphill down safely after he was alerted by Kennedy tower officials. “The Kennedy tower spoke to him as if he were the only one around,” Randle said. “They told him they could get him down and nobody was around at that time of night. “But the pilot sounded kind of rattled. He tried making a landing three or four times and finally said ‘Well, I’ve had it. I haven’t got the guts to make another attempt.’ He then said he was going to fly south and was turning off his radio.” Randle, a 20-year Coast Guard veteran from East Meadow, N.Y., was flying in a fixed wing aircraft with Lt. Cmdr. John MacDonald, a 13year veteran from New Milford, N.J.

Five guilty in game rigging

LOS ANGELES (UPI)—Five men charged with conspiring to mulch wealthy members of the Friars Club show business fraternity out of more than $400,000 in rigged card games over a five-year period were —Heloise. LETTER OF LAUGHTER DEAR HELOISE: I’ve written you so many hints that my hand is shaking like a puppy dog’s tail . . . A Fan * ♦ * DEAR HELOISE: Didja know that those little hand-adder-uppers for shopping can also be used to count calories ? The cent column becomes ones, the dime column becomes tens, etc. Makes counting calories so much easier! A Dieter * * ♦ Dear Gals: Or should 1 say folks? (Men have such long hair nowadays that this might just apply to them, too, if they use hair dryers. One department store clerk told me I would be surprised at how many men are buying them now!) If you have heavy, thick hair in front on rollers, have you ever thought about turning that cap around so the hot air can get to those heavy front curlers more quickly? I do. Find it saves time. I wonder why those manufacturers don’t put that inlet hole in the top? Sure would distribute the heat more lyHeloise

DEAR HELOISE: When my two daughters married, I made them each a mending basket from wicker picnic baskets. I lined the insides (including the lids) with quilted material and attached a strip of contrasting colored tape to hold pins and needles. On the outside of the lid I glued a perky plastic flower. Their baskets can be left sitting anywhere in the room and look nice while holding mending or darning until they have time to do the chore. Mrs. E. Schnippel * * * DEAR HELOISE: When I read your hint on placing a coil spring low on screen doors in order to avoid a nasty pop should it break, I thought I'd tell you how I solve this problem. Before installing a coil spring on a door, I buy (at a hardware supply store) a length of transparent plastic hose with a diameter large enough for the spring to slip into. I cut this the length of the spring. Then if it snaps in two, no one will be cut because of the protecting plastic. Earl Brink * * * DEAR HELOISE: I wouldn’t be without a mascara brush in my sewing basket. It’s ideal for cleaning lint and dust from around the foot of the bobbin on my sewing machine. A Seamstress * * * This column is written for you . . . the housewife and homemaker. If you have a hint or a problem write to Heloise in care of this newspaper. Because of the tremendous volume of mail, Heloise is unable to answer all individual letters. She will, however, answer your questions in her column whenever possible.

“We lost contact with him for three hours after that,” Randle said. “He was maneuvering very erratically and was flying just above the wave tops most of the time. He never did respond by radio. Everytime we got our craft alongside, he

would turn the other way. “At one point we came upon two big cruise ships, one going north and one headed south. He circled very close to each one of them and as we came alongside again, he started climbing very quickly.

“We really had to scramble to catch up with him. He went to 6,000 or 6,500 feet in and out of the clouds. Finally we lost him. We thought Kennedy still had him on radar. But they lost him too. Finally 20 or 25 minutes later, Kennedy said they had

him on the radio and we tried contacting him. “We got him and he told us he had two compasses, but we found one was 90 degrees off. He seemed to know what he was talking about. We gave him the heading for the beach but by then it was pretty obvious he wasn’t going to make it. “He said his engine started sputtering and he switched to

the second tank. He got the craft going again, but started to sputter again so he switched back to the first tank.” MacDonald, who did most of the talking with Hemphill, said the pilot in the beginning of the ditching attempt was quite excited but calmed down later on. It was an hour and 10 minutes, Randle said, before a

helicopter was able to get to the scene to rescue Hemphill. He was brought to the Llizal>eth City Coast Guard station shivering and barefooted and dressed only in a T-shirt and corduroy pants. “He doesn’t appear to be in serious condition,” said Capt.F. T. Merritt, the base’s commanding officer. “He wasn’t questioned at all.”

found guilty Monday on all 49 felony counts. The jury of 10 women and two men deliberated 22 hours during four days, discussing nearly six months of testimony and arguments in the trial. U.S. Dist. Judge William P. Gray set Jan. 20 for sentencing and hearing motions. Maximum prison terms could range from five years for one defendant to 130 years for another. All five defendants were charged with conspiring to rig gin rummy games in the Beverly Hills clubhouse by electronic signals relayed to players from peepholes in the ceiling of the card room. The stag club claims a membership of about 600 persons, including the elite of the show business world. Witnesses testified the games were rigged through electronic signaling devices strapped to the waists of players in on the cheating scheme. A confederate posted above peepholes in the ceiling would signal the player when to “knock” at gin rummy. Those reportedly bilked ineluded singer Tony Martin; comedians Phil Silvers and Zeppo Marx, camera manufacturer Theodore Briskin and shoe magnate Harry Karl. Briskin was the biggest lower, reportedly dropping $220,000 during the five-year conspiracy. Six persons were originally indicted by a federal grand jury but one—Dr. Victor G. Lands, 53, of Beverly Hills, pleaded guilty to filing a false income tax statement and did not stand trial. A seventh figure in the case, Edwin Nathaniel Gebhard, 54, of Miami, Fla., an electronics engineer, was sentenced by another judge to 17 years in prison for perjury before the grand jury that investigated the conspiracy. Gebhard admitted he installed peepholes but denied having anything to do with the relay devices. The government’s star witness was George Emerson Seach. He testified he was brought into the scheme in June, 1962, and estimated that during the nine months he operated the peepholes in the club, the scheme realized about $400,000 for the conspirators. —Buckley His office has grilled Cohn’s rabbi, his girl friends, the stores at which he buys his clothes. Put it this way, if Cohn turns out to be something less than the Boston Strangler, we have here a prima facie case of harrassment. One thinks again and again of the ombudsman, the idea of which was so popular in New York for a while but which idea seems to have disappeared from sight. Classically, it would be to the ombudsman that someone such as Cohn would turn. And the ombudsman, invested with the proper authority, would have the right if not to restrain such persecution, at least to mitigate the consequences of it. It happens that Roy Cohn is able and rich. But there are those who are neither, whose cases do not make the newspapers, but whose lives are wrecked by the petty and major harrassments of public officials who if they feel pangs of remorse at going after someone who is proved innocent, do not tend to exhibit them; and in any case, remorse is not accepted by banks as legal tender. Surely the judiciary committees of Congress should inquire into the inequity?

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